Blast Site Visitors Struggle to Understand : Mourners: Thousands pay their respects at the Oklahoma City federal building. ‘God bless the children and the innocent,’ reads a sign nearby.

It was almost too painful to lay eyes upon, but to never have seen it would have been worse.

After 17 days of grieving from a distance, of only imagining the horrific force that robbed 167 people of their lives, thousands of the victims’ family members, friends and co-workers Saturday made their first pilgrimage to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, finally witnessing up close the structure’s haunting face.

They shuffled their feet hesitantly as they filed past, their heads tilted skyward as they gaped at the staggering magnitude of the damage. Some came with video cameras, which they aimed at the floors on which their loved ones once worked, now jagged ledges jutting into space. Others, obviously overcome by the image, buried their heads on comforting shoulders. Many just stood in the eerie silence, too numb even to move.

The mother of 1-year-old Baylee Almon, the lifeless child carried by a firefighter from the smoldering ruins, hugged an FBI chaplain in front of a shrine of teddy bears and children’s toys set up at the base of the rubble. Jon Hansen, the Oklahoma City Fire Department’s spokesman, arrived with his 3-year-old daughter, Jill, who had been “asking about the mean man who hurt all those kids.” One small boy, too young to understand, knew enough to cling to his mother’s neck as if for dear life.

“The look in their eyes is so empty,” said Todd Haugh, a police officer from the Michigan community of Center Line, who had just driven the 1,100 miles to Oklahoma City in an all-night convoy to deliver money, food and support. “They’re just asking, ‘Why?’ without saying a word.”

The grim procession was expected to last for more than six hours, as buses delivered mourners to the bomb site. Each visitor was handed a red, long-stemmed rose--”to remind you,” said the message on every tub of flowers, “that beauty still exists in our world.”

They followed a horseshoe-shaped loop around the crime scene, guided by Red Cross workers, clergymen and yellow police tape. One woman, as soon as she saw all nine gutted stories of the structure, mouthed the words: “Oh, my God.” Another cried inconsolably when she got to the makeshift altar, her sobs bouncing off the hollow building. On a concrete slab nearby, one of the rescue workers had spray-painted: “God bless the children and the innocent.”

“These people are going through so much shock and grief, I’m not sure any of us totally understand,” said Richard Sale, an FBI chaplain from South Carolina, who greeted mourners under a red-and-white striped canopy covering the shrine. “I know my mind cannot comprehend the extent of what’s happened here.”

Police and firefighters, who had combed the rubble for bodies and clues since the April 19 explosion, picked through it again--only this time they were filling buckets with mementos, not evidence. Some in the crowd sifted through the offerings, looking for a chunk of concrete that might lend their memories more permanence. But one man, dressed in a black cowboy hat and a shirt resembling an American flag, sheepishly snatched the first piece of rubble he happened upon, as if he weren’t sure what he would do with it, anyway.

As they filed out, they were greeted by Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating and his wife, Cathy, who gave each family a state flag and a small booklet of inspirational sayings. Before getting back on the buses, they were also treated to one last visit from Charlie, an impossibly cute spider monkey who is being used as a therapeutic tool to keep family members from shutting down emotionally.

“We are there to love and share and hug,” said counselor Sharlotte Campbell as she cuddled Charlie, who wore a velour jumpsuit and tiny Nikes. “He cuts through the veneer that all of us seem to develop when we become adults. It keeps people from freezing.”

On their way to the building, friends and relatives had a chance to consult with two mental health workers and a clergyman assigned to each bus. They shared a prayer together and talked about the awesome damage they were about to witness, about “how intense it would be,” said Red Cross spokeswoman Mary Arbuckle.

“You can watch it on TV,” said Arbuckle, who stood by the shrine clutching a brown teddy bear. “But to really walk up and see it in person can be overwhelming.”

Some families, in fact, told the Red Cross they were too distraught to make the journey. But for most of them, it was a chance to bring some closure to their anguish.

“It’s hard to explain,” said Sam Patterson, who survived the blast by crawling from his third-floor Department of Health and Human Services office down a slope of rubble. But being here “helps me understand what happened.”

For two families, those of missing credit union employees Christy Rosas and Virginia Thompson, the bombed-out structure is all that they have. One family visited the concrete tomb during a private excursion Friday morning. The other, too consumed with grief, asked only for a photograph.